1. Field
Embodiments of the invention are generally related to memory bandwidth management and thermal throttling, and more particularly related to using device identification for memory bandwidth allocation and control of active cooling based on memory bandwidth management.
2. Description of the Related Art
In today's computer systems, such as personal computers (PCs), servers, notebooks, etc., the sum of all the included components thermal design power (TDP) is becoming greater than the cooling capability of the system. Hardware mechanisms that can throttle down processing speed effect basic functionally and capabilities of the systems. For example, certain audio applications demand a constant 10 Mbytes/sec. isochronous bandwidth. That is, isochronous applications require guaranteed bandwidth and deterministic latency starting from the device to the end source (memory). The main attribute of an isochronous stream is to guarantee quality of service (QOS). Therefore, if a system throttles down, media performance (audio/video performance) can be compromised.
Current operating systems do not support a bandwidth manager for memory. The available memory bandwidth varies by multiple factors, which are platform dependent, such as processor front side bus speed, memory speed (e.g., double data rate (DDR) 200/266/333/400 MHz), dual channel versus single channel, etc. Therefore, with the higher sum TDP and minimum memory bandwidth requirements for audio/video streams, current systems cannot meet the demands of cooling and guaranteeing high bandwidth requirements without compromising platform performance, such as applications, processor speed, etc. or causing detrimental effect of inefficient cooling.